


Crackpipe

by lionessvalenti



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, High School, POV First Person, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan and Cary aren't really friends, but they hang out all the time anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crackpipe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hopeonfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeonfire/gifts).



I set my XBox controller down on the coffee table next to the large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and picked up my red glass bowl. I fondly called it my crackpipe, even though I'd never do crack, but it usually got a laugh.

I scooped up my lighter and held up the bowl to Cary, who was sitting in the armchair that was across from my couch. "Do you want some?"

Cary didn't play video games, or even get the munchies like any self respecting stoner should. He just came over to my house because my parents didn't care if I smoked in the basement as long as I got all my homework done and didn't become a total burnout. Cary's dad, on the other hand, was a retired cop and would probably arrest me if he knew what Cary was doing. Or just scare the shit out of me. Either one.

"Sure," Cary replied. He set his notebook aside and took the bowl and lighter from me. That's what he did when he was here. He smoked and he wrote in a notebook. It was one of those thick ones for five subjects, but he ripped out the dividers and wrote in them until the edges were rounded with aged and the cover was practically falling off. This is the 21st century, man. Get a laptop.

I guess, in a way, Cary was using me. Sure, he gave me money sometimes to help buy the pot, and he was polite to my mom, but it's not like we were really friends. We didn't talk or hang out together. We might have been in the same room, but we were a million miles apart. Me, playing Arkham City, and him with his notebook.

"What are you writing, anyway?" I asked.

Cary let out the breath of smoke he'd been holding in and handed me the crackpipe. "Just stuff. It's like a novel."

"Can I read it?"

"I _know_ you're stoned," he replied, like that was a real answer. Just to prove his point, I sucked in a loud, exaggerated breath from the bowl.

I hung out with Cary because Trevor and Rick started playing football, Austin moved to Florida freshman year, and though he used to hang out with us in the basement, Pete now was more interested in being Mary Anne Spier's perfect boyfriend. That definitely didn't include hours playing video games while stoned.

Sometimes Erica Blumberg and Claudia Kishi came over, and that was fun because they were girls, and Claudia always brought way better snacks than I had. I liked Erica a lot, and maybe she liked me, but I couldn't tell. If this was the eighth grade, I would have snapped her bra strap to see if she'd laugh or get mad to know, but that kind of thing didn't fly three years later. Cary told me that kind of thing hadn't flown in the eighth grade, either.

I don't think Cary ever had friends. Maybe before he moved to Stoneybook. He'd always been a smartass and a jerk and that alienated people. I told him that once, and he said he was the only one who got to be introspective.

"I could tell you if your book's any good," I said, and I wasn't sure why I even cared. It might have been I'd known the guy for three years, and now he was at my house three or four times a week, and I didn't actually know him. He was just that weird guy without any friends who somehow latched onto me because I could get home weed. I missed having buddies, and Cary was the closest thing I had.

Or maybe Cary was right and I was just totally stoned.

He snorted and smirked at me. "I don't need you to tell me if it's good."

"Is this one of those things where you have a thousand notebooks stacked in your closet like a serial killer and never let anyone read them? If they're good you could make some money like that lady who wrote _Twilight_."

He blinked at me. "I don't know if I should be offended because you just called me a serial killer or because you compared anything I do to _Twilight_."

I grinned. "Definitely the last one."

"That's what I thought." Cary leaned back in that chair and pulled his thick notebook back into his lap. He tapped his pen against the paper for a moment, and I knew he was going to say something, but if he didn't say it soon, he was going to get ignored in favor of Batman.

I was picking up the controller again when Cary said, "When I'm ready for someone to read it, I could give it to you."

"Really?"

"Who else would I show it to? My parents? My brother? You might even get it."

I think that was supposed to be the Cary Retlin version of a compliment, the kind that was shaded with a vague insult. "That's all I've ever wanted in this life," I replied dryly, "to understand what's going on in your mind."

He smirked again. "I can't help if if you're gay for me."

I rolled my eyes. "When is this book going to be done, anyway? I'm not getting any younger here."

Cary shrugged. "I don't know. This is the fifth draft. I've been writing this since I was twelve. Each version gets a little better, but I don't know if it'll ever be _done_. Someday, I might just have to settle and be satisfied with it."

"I can't think of anything I've done since I was twelve."

"You like to torment Kristy Thomas. You've been doing that all your life, I think."

I laughed. "Oh, yeah. I would have gotten bored with that by now except she makes it so easy. She takes it so personally."

Cary laughed. "I know what you mean."

I started the game back up and began playing while Cary went back to his writing. Without looking away from the screen, I said, "Thanks, man."

"For what?" he asked.

I shrugged with one shoulder. "Letting me read your book someday. I bet it's good. You're reading all the time, so you know what's good."

Cary was quiet for a few seconds, and then replied, "Thanks, but you're really stoned."

"So are you," I said, and we laughed.

Maybe Cary and I had actually been friends for a while and I hadn't even realized it.


End file.
